The conclusion is the last impression you leave with the editor. Most are abstract-redux paragraphs that add nothing. Here is the four-move structure that turns the section into a final argument rather than a summary.
Open ten recent papers in your field and read just the conclusions. You will notice something uncomfortable: most of them say the same thing. This study examined X. We found Y. The results have implications for theory and practice. Future research should explore further dimensions of the phenomenon. Identical scaffolding, generic vocabulary, no actual claim about what the paper added.
The conclusion is the last thing a reviewer reads before deciding what to write in the recommendation box. Editors often read it first. Yet most researchers treat it as the section they can throw together in twenty minutes at the end. Learning how to write conclusion research paper material that closes the argument rather than restating the abstract is one of the cheapest, highest-leverage improvements you can make to a manuscript.
A conclusion is not a summary. The abstract already does that. A conclusion is the paper's final argument — the place where you state, in your own voice, what the field should now believe or do differently because of this work. It should feel less like a wrap-up and more like a closing.
Three things make a conclusion strong: it names the contribution rather than the findings; it connects back to the question raised in the introduction; and it points forward to something specific rather than gesturing vaguely at "future research." Everything else is decoration. The companion guides on writing the introduction and structuring the full paper make this connection from the other end.
Editor's Note
"A conclusion that could be pasted into any other paper on a similar topic is a conclusion that did not need to be written." If your closing paragraphs read as interchangeable with the next paper down the inbox, you have written a summary, not a conclusion. The fix is almost always to be more specific about your contribution, in your setting, for your reader.
Strong conclusions follow a remarkably consistent four-move structure. Each move corresponds to one short paragraph of roughly 60–90 words. Together they produce a conclusion that is tight, specific, and actually closes the paper.
The four-move conclusion
One paragraph per move. Total length: 240–360 words.
Not what we found, but what this paper contributes. State it in one sentence and resist the urge to qualify it with "may suggest" or "could indicate."
Reach back to the unresolved question you raised in the introduction. Show explicitly how this paper closes — or narrows, or reframes — that gap. This is the move most weak conclusions skip entirely.
One sentence acknowledging the most consequential boundary on the contribution. Not a recap of the limitations section — just the one boundary the reader most needs to keep in mind when applying the finding.
Name one concrete next step a future researcher could take, not "more research is needed." Specify the design, the population, or the variable the next study should add.
Conclusions are easier to write when you accept that they should be short. For most empirical papers in SSCI and Scopus-indexed journals, the conclusion should fit in roughly one page of double-spaced manuscript. If yours runs longer, it is probably doing the discussion's work a second time.
Below is the same paper closed two ways. The findings are identical. The closing argument is not.
A strong conclusion does not summarise the paper. It tells the field what to do with it.
If your conclusion can be reverse-engineered from your abstract, it is a redux. The abstract is for first-time readers; the conclusion is for readers who have already read the paper. Those are different audiences and need different content.
A conclusion that contains evidence, references, or arguments not raised earlier in the paper is a scope violation. Reviewers flag this routinely. Anything important enough to mention in the conclusion is important enough to develop in the discussion.
This phrase has appeared in so many conclusions that it now signals laziness rather than humility. Name the specific design, population, or variable the next study should incorporate. The companion guide on writing future research directions covers how to do this well.
Phrases like "these findings open exciting new avenues for inquiry" are the prose equivalent of empty calories. Strike them. Replace each one with a sentence that names what specifically opens, and for whom.
A conclusion is not the section you write when you run out of energy. It is the section that decides what the reviewer remembers. Four short paragraphs — contribution, gap, boundary, next step — produce a closing that adds weight rather than length. Get the conclusion right and the paper feels finished. Get it wrong and even strong evidence ends on a flat note.
Send us your draft conclusion. A senior editor will tell you whether it closes the argument or just restates the abstract — and exactly how to rewrite each move if it falls short.